Minority gains fueling growth of area

Census Bureau data released Thursday indicate that much of the population growth in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area and in the state of Texas since the 2010 Census was fueled by growth in the non-Anglo population.

Census Bureau data released Thursday indicate that much of the...

Reflecting trends seen across Texas and the nation, new Census Bureau data released Thursday indicate much of the recent population growth in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area was fueled by its burgeoning non-Anglo populations.

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The non-Anglo population in the metro area grew by 5.5 percent between the 2010 census and July 1, 2012, according to the latest population estimates.

The Anglo population grew by 2.1 percent in that period.

The Hispanic population grew the most, with that community adding about 58,000 residents to its ranks, accounting for more than 54 percent of the eight-county metro area's 2,234,000 residents.

“The Hispanic population increase continues to be the most pervasive growth in Texas as it does nationally,” said Steve Murdock, a former Director of the Census Bureau and currently a sociology professor at Houston's Rice University.

The Anglo population saw the second-greatest increase, growing by fewer than 17,000 people during that period, and now makes up less than 36 percent of the region's population.

It's the same story across Texas. The state added almost a half-million Hispanics between the 2010 census and mid-2012, more than tripling the rate of Anglos, whose statewide population grew by 155,000.

In percentage terms, the Hispanic population grew by 5.3 percent and the Anglo count grew by 1.4 percent.

Texas State Demographer Lloyd Potter said a couple of factors accounted for the lagging population growth rate of Anglos relative to Hispanics.

“The Hispanic population tends to be younger, so they don't have that many deaths and they have a slightly higher fertility rate, so they have more births,” said Potter, a demography professor at UTSA.

Nationally, 77.4 percent of the increase in Hispanic population between the 2010 Census and the 2012 population estimates has occurred as a result of natural increase — the number of births minus the number of deaths — according to census data. The corresponding figure for Anglos is just 6.4 percent.

Potter also noted that many people from other states are attracted to Texas's economically expanding urban areas and out-of-state Hispanics are no different.

“They're coming to places where there's economic growth and if you look at (San Antonio), it's one of the faster-growing regions of the country,” Potter said.

The San Antonio metro area's April unemployment rate of 6.2 percent was 1.3 percent lower than the national rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

And in some ways, experts said, other Texas metro areas are beginning to resemble the demographics the San Antonio area has had for some time.

After experiencing rapid minority population growth in recent years, both of those counties have non-Anglo populations of more than 49 percent. Bexar County is already more than 70 percent non-Anglo.

And it's not just the Hispanic population whose growth, percentage-wise, is outpacing that of Anglos around San Antonio.

The African American population grew at a 7.2 percent rate, adding more than 9,000 new residents. The area's small population of Asians grew by 9 percent. The American Indian population grew by 9.2 percent, the Pacific Islander population grew by 7.3 percent and the non-Hispanic multi-racial population had a best-in-the-metro growth rate of 11.7 percent.

“However you look at it, continued minority population growth is the future,” Murdock said.